Clarification on the two Child’s Play projects: Chucky Vs Chucky?

Earlier this week, news broke that MGM were fast tracking a remake of the 1988 horror movie, Child’s Play. This news seemed a little confusing as Chucky creator, Don Mancini had only recently confirmed that the existing Child’s Play movie franchise was being turned into a TV series.

So what gives?

Well, thanks to Bloody Disgusting, we have a bit of clarification. Basically, the site went directly to Mancini to get the 411 and he obliged with the following: “We’re still working on the series and also plan to continue the film franchise with Universal.”

According to Bloody Disgusting, MGM are developing a remake of the original movie, without Mancini’s involvement, while Universal Pictures is planning to continue the franchise on TV, with Mancini’s involvement. This is kind of what everyone figured, but it’s good that there is now some clarification.

So, how and why is this happening?

Well, it seems it’s all to do with who owns what.

MGM distributed the original Child’s Play, but then sold the rights to the sequels to Universal Pictures before Child’s Play 2 (1990) entered production. As such, it would appear that MGM owns the rights to Child’s Play, which means that the studio can remake this entry only.

In simple terms, MGM can remake Child’s Play and that’s exactly what is going to happen. Meanwhile, Universal will continue with its plans to extend the original series into TV (and possibly more movie sequels), ignoring this remake in the process.

Now here’s where things get even more interesting.

According to Collider, MGM’s new version of Child’s Play will focus on a technologically advanced doll and a group of kids. So far, it doesn’t quite sound like the original Child’s Play, does it?

And here’s the important thing to bear in mind: It’s entirely possible that Child’s Play Mark II might not be an exact reboot as everyone is assuming. It’s also possible that the doll in this movie won’t even be called Chucky, it could be some new doll entirely.

Details are still quite sketchy at the moment, but in order to bypass confusion (and any additional rights issues), MGM might simply be taking the bare bones of the original Child’s Play to create a new story for this reboot – a new story, with an entirely new doll. MGM’s Child’s Play remake might not be a Chucky film after all – well, not entirely anyway.

Of course, as MGM has yet to confirm the name of this new doll, we could still see a Child’s Play movie complete with its own version of Chucky. This could then go head-to-head with the TV show that Universal has up its sleeve to cause a little bit of confusion.